808

In the late 1970's, electronic music as we know it today was beginning to emerge.

Early hip-hop and electro music was rarely heard outside New York,

and was yet to make it onto record.

In Europe, bands like Kraftwerk were experimenting with revolutionary,

futuristic electronic sounds,

sounds that would prove hugely influential.

Most people had never seen a computer, let alone used one.

One machine was about to change everything,

sparking a musical revolution and helping lay the foundations

for modern electronic music.

The sound that would kick-start a musical revolution across America,

Europe, and around the world was born in Japan.

During the late 70's, the Japanese electronics industry was experiencing a period of huge innovation.

New advances in technology meant relatively cheap electronic instruments,

and basic computers were being manufactured.

You know, the only thing that I knew by that point was the electro drums that are inside

of your Grandma's organ, you know the church organ,

the little rhythm machine that Sly and the Family Stone used to use back in 1971.

That's the very first futuristic look into the idea of drum machines,

but no one ever wanted to make that the primary sound,

you only used that when you had no drummer.

There were a few records here and there,

say like, 'Why Can't We Live Together' by Timmy Thomas

that obviously was using some kind of those,

I think they used to call them combo rhythm units because they were built into organs

so that somebody could just have a little rhythm background

while playing the organ or something like that, that was the classic, typical thing.

It's quite common to use drum machines on records,

that Timmy Thomas record was a massive record.

Even, there's like a drum machine track on 'Yellow Brick Road', an Elton John thing.

You know... They were being used,

but they weren't kind of a common language.

This story begins with one man, Ikutaro Kakehashi,

or Mr. K. Born in Osaka in 1930,

Mr. K studied mechanical engineering in high school before opening a

watch repair shop at sixteen.

Following a period of ill health,

Mr. K decided to concentrate on creating electronic instruments,

launching Ace Electronics who made combo rhythm boxes for Hammond organs

before launching Roland in 1972.

By 1978, Roland had built a global name for itself in the music industry,

and had even released the CR-78,

a rhythm machine with basic programmable features.

Back in the sort of late 70s there was a band I used to rehearse in the same place as,

they had a drum machine, a Roland CR-78,

it was a band called Crispy Ambulance and they were using it on records.

Then in 1980 Roland released a machine that would change everything.

I think I heard about it in Japan,

and I think it was from a band called The Plastics.

A new wave Japanese band and they were real hip and they said,

"Oh TR-808, so cool," you know.

I remember somebody said, "Hey you gotta check out this box,

"it's called the 808, you can actually program it."

I went somewhere in Manhattan or whatever, it was Sam Ash or something like that,

and the guy had a drum machine, but it wasn't the 808 at first

it was like some DR-55.

I remember going down to the music store on 48th Street, Manny's Music.

And then we saw the 808, it was like, "Ahhhhhh..."

There is was, and the guy said, "Oh, this is, this is the new thing.

"You can, you can program this however you want."

It's got red buttons and white buttons,

it's got knobs, it looks like a computer man.

Got to get an 808, got to get an 808.

Credited to two Roland employees, Mr. Nakamura and Mr. Matsuoka,

the 808 was created by Roland as a rhythm machine for backing tracks.

Like its predecessors, it was aimed at musicians without a drummer,

who simply wanted to make demos.

Initial reaction was mixed,

not least because the 808 didn't sound like real drums.

I think when I first heard it I didn't realize what a cool sound it was.

It sounded so much like what an 808 sounds like and not like anything else,

that I probably was looking for something that sounded more like drums,

but it didn't sound like drums it sounded like an 808.

Because at the time it was competing with

the Linn and the DMX which actually like I said sounded like drummers,

the reviewer said the maraca sound in particular

sounds like a hoard of marching ants

and it's like, well, yeah, yeah,

yeah that's it, that's what's good about it.

But the fact that it didn't sound like real drums would end up being the 808's attraction.

It sounded otherworldly, futuristic.

The low sonic boom of the kick, the tinny snare, cowbell, and odd sounding handclap.

These elements all combined to make it completely unique.

What Mr. K and Roland could never have predicted

was the 808 would be adopted and championed by a new breed of electronic musicians,

who would use the 808 as an instrument in its own right.

House, electro, Miami Bass, hip hop, R&B,

trap, crunk, pop, rock, drum and bass,

all of these genres and more have been touched by the 808,

driven by its iconic sounds.

Without it, music would sound completely different today.

But to tell the story properly, we need to rewind slightly.

Back to a pre-808 New York City.

The vibrant beats and break scene was being led by a group of DJ's from the Bronx.

Inspired by legends like Kool DJ Herc and Kool DJ Dee.

Block parties were popular and a place for DJ's to experiment,

isolating percussive breaks in popular songs.

One of the key figures in this scene was DJ Afrika Bambaataa,

the self styled leader of the Zulu Nation.

Back in the early days we was playing a lot of different music

dealing with the soul and the funk that was happening at the time.

I was also into a group called Yellow Magic Orchestra

from Japan and a group from Germany

that struck a big chord in myself was Kraftwerk.

So with the funk of James Brown, Sly and the Family Stone,

Uncle George 'Parliament Funkadelic' Clinton,

and also my, my homeboy Gary Numan,

I decided to mash it up, thus became the birth of this sound called the electro funk sound.

In the late 70's, future Tommy Boy Records founder Tom Silverman

was working on his magazine Dance Music Report,

when he heard about Bambaataa.

I heard about this thing that was happening called The Breakbeat Room at Downstairs Records,

and this was a record store that was down in,

down below on the way to the subways on 6th Avenue and 43rd Street,

and there was a line out the door

of kids like sixteen and seventeen year old kids, black kids,

waiting to get to the front so that they could buy these records

and it was like a phenomenon, I'd never seen anything like it.

I said what is... What's going on, and what do these records have to do with each other?

And the kids would say that these are the records that Afrika Bambaataa plays.

And so I asked the guy who was sort of running that part of the store

selling records about how I could reach Bambaataa,

and he gave me a phone number and I called Bambaataa

and he told me, "Come up and hear me play,

"I'm playing at the T-Connection on Thursday night," or whatever it is,

and I went up to, to hear him spin.

It was a disco, T-Connection it was on White Plains Road in the Bronx.

There were some guys at the door and I said I was here to see Bambaataa

and I think they looked at me like they had never seen a white guy in the club ever.

They wanted to know who was this black young man

who was playing all of these different sounds of music

to a large black, Latino audience.

They were hearing about me and the different songs I was playing.

This is the time when we was just giving the birth of hip hop.

I asked Bambaataa that night, I said, "Do you want to make a record?"

and he said, "Ok." And I never made a record before,

I didn't really know what that entailed

except from hanging out with other people in the business

that were making records, so I said, "Alright let's start working on it."

Tommy Boy was born in 1981 out of Silverman's West 85th Street apartment,

and set about making records.

Hip-hop as we know it was being born.

Silverman and Bambaataa got together to work on ideas,

recording a demo for a record that would define modern-day hip-hop and dance music.

We cut a demo for what would become 'Planet Rock'

and it had three or four different songs that we wanted to incorporate

and that Bambaataa was playing.

We used 'I Like It' from BT Express,

we used a Rick James song, Kraftwerk,

and we used Babe Ruth 'The Mexican',

and we made this eight-track demo. I ended up having a cassette of it

and I played it for Arthur Baker, he flipped out.

He said, "This is great, lets do a full out recording of it,"

so I said, "Alright cool, let's put this together."

In an uptown Manhattan recording studio,

Silverman, Bambaataa, Baker, John Robie, and Jay Burnett

set about producing the track.

One of Bambaataa's MC crews, The Soulsonic Force, joined them in the studio that night.

The original Soulsonic Force was Mr. Biggs, Pow Wow, G.L.O.B.E, Jazzy Jay.

We was trying to do that whole family of funk or family of hip-hop,

like James Brown when he had the family of soul,

or George 'Parliament Funkadelic' had in Parliament.

There could be five or six on the stage or sometimes we might have twenty on the microphone.

This gentleman here, first Soulsonic Force member.

My name is Mr. Biggs, Soulsonic Force, peace to the world.

Afrika Bambaataa's first MC.

Released on Tommy Boy Records in 1982,

'Planet Rock' was the result of a perfect fusion of people,

from diverse racial, social and musical backgrounds.

A melting pot of musical genres, attitudes, style, mentality, and beneath it all,

a visionary use of a drum machine, the 808.

808 was definitely a serious sound that gave that extra funk and grunt

to the record. Because if you heard Kraftwerk they was funky,

but they didn't have that soulful bass bottom that was needed.

That was definitely the first time I saw an 808,

and it was also probably the first hands on

computer that, that I used in music.

-We heard that them drums come out the 808 and we was like... -That was the end.

-Yo what the hell. -There was no bass like the 808.

-It would just hit you in the head like your whole body would just shake. -Yes.

Oh it was the key, it was the bottom,

and if you listen to the rock,

the way Arthur and John mixed it

they had to play with that 808 for a while to give it that

whrump, whrump, whrump you know.

It was very fast, the record was one hundred and twenty nine beats per minute,

and in urban dance music at the time, one hundred and twenty was speedy.

The rappers definitely weren't into 'Planet Rock' when we did it,

they thought it was a weird beat, they thought it was too fast or too slow because it was sort of half time.

It was so different it has us startled like,

either this shit is going to be a hit,

or we ain't going to rap no more.

G.L.O.B.E was the guy who wrote the stuff so basically

G.L.O.B.E had to take it back and come up with phrasing and sort of do half time stuff.

G.L.O.B.E was the masterpiece he came up with the blue print.

The things he could do with a rhyme was just crazy.

We were so into what we had done we didn't know what the outcome was going to be.

We were just relieved that it was over and we knew that something was going on in that room.

You really can't predict a hit.